


The Sin of Omission

by TheIskra



Series: Gareth Mallory Character Studies [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26167252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIskra/pseuds/TheIskra
Summary: Another character study for Gareth Mallory. Meant sort of as a sequel or companion to Into The Valley of Death.
Relationships: M | Gareth Mallory/Alec Trevelyan
Series: Gareth Mallory Character Studies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900219
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	The Sin of Omission

The protocol needed to simply leave the office is extensive. The magnetic lock to his office clicks and thumps before the light shifts from green to flashing red and finally to solid red. The waiting area is larger than the last one. Moneypenny’s desk on one side seating area on the other. It’s all so corporate and strangely isolating.

The door to leave the waiting area is locked from the timing device and keypad on the outside but reinforced by a standard steel lock. The amount of security is disconcerting but necessary. The advice he had received from the PM was clear.

_“Don’t give anyone reason to want to show up and take you out.”_

It was an unreasonable but understandable comment, but it still pissed him off. He walks through the hall, up the stairs to the car park one floor above what is still very clearly, a bunker. There’s a hand print sensor as he crosses the threshold and he presses a hand to it. The glass door to the garage clicks and he opens the door. His attempt to use his own vehicle was stopped on the first day of the job. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of how much security is needed for a person in your position, Mallory,” he’s told. When he arrived at his office on his first official day, Q was sitting silently on one of the high backed chairs in the waiting room with the keys to his ‘official car’. Bulletproof, chipped, remote access for evasive driving from someone sat in Q branch whose sole job was to provide that service if it was ever in need. It all seemed so bizarre until Q had let his eyes move to Mallory’s arm, still in a sling after the bullet was removed from his shoulder.

Pulling the car’s remote from his pocket, he presses the auto start, an instruction to ensure that there wasn’t ignition tampering, thanks to Q branch. Most nights he goes to dinner or drives around London until he tires himself out enough to drive home. His life was relatively simple before. He could go wherever he wished, whenever he wished. He was never one to raise eyebrows or cause a fuss. He didn’t find much relaxation in holidays or beaches but rather driving until he was too exhausted to keep going and pull over to whatever town he came upon next and found a room at some Inn.

But now he was monitored 24/7. Between the GPS in his car to the seven cameras at his home, he was well and truly covered. When he had questioned it, the PM nearly laughed him out of the room. After what had happened to his predecessor, there was no way that he would be able to live in the same way that he had before.

He had been camped out in Q Branch when they got the call. Tanner quickly excused himself and the Quartermaster took a deep breath and buried his head in his hands. He wasn’t given the choice. His actions to protect her at Whitehall placed him firmly in line for the job regardless of whether he wanted it or not.

As he pulls out of the underground lot, he turns on the satellite radio, listens to the Stones, loosens the knotted tie at his neck and unbuttons the top button of his shirt.

_War, children, it’s just a shot away_

His mind processes the day’s meetings, the conversations, the briefings, the schedule for the coming week. The sheer amount of information he must absorb is immense. He hadn’t made many changes to the department and frankly, didn’t have enough time to do so anyway.

Keeping all the wheels turning, all of the balls in the air, all of the simultaneous projects and missions and requests in line was more than one person could achieve. It was nary a week before he felt comfortable asking Tanner to assist with his schedule. He had given him the option to transfer if he felt as though he could no longer serve as Chief of Staff but he insisted, as had Q and Moneypenny to stay on. If nothing else, he had their respect as much as they had his.

“Where is everyone fucking going,” he mumbles, irritated at the traffic. It was nearly ten in the evening on a Friday night, he realizes. _Oh right, when normal people go out to have a drink or a date or a shag._ It had been more than six months since he had seen anyone socially. An old girlfriend who was part yoga instructor/part artist was his companion of choice. Roughly his age if not a little older, she was thoroughly disinterested in politics and completely in favor of him spending an inordinate amount of money on dinner and an immense amount of time pleasuring her. While he knows reasonably that those days are less likely, he doesn’t want to expose people to his new reality. The phone calls in the middle of the night summoning him to the office, last minute international flights wouldn’t be well received by anyone he had kept company with and weren’t conducive to fostering a new relationship. Those days are past, he thinks.

He doesn’t mind being alone though. The heaviness of his work is enough. He can’t be bothered with meeting new people, with trying to make someone feel as though he were fully committed when he isn’t. If he’s honest, at this point in his life, he’ll settle for semi-regular sex with someone who doesn’t give a damn about his work.

Instructed to never take the same way home twice when driving (which was daily), he often drove for awhile before ending up at home. It seemed like a terrible waste but he did it, understanding that the alternative was being driven by someone everywhere which was so horribly pretentious that he’d never agree to it. Now he tries to enjoy it, listening to music, silence, or the sound of the windshield wipers sweeping over and over and over. By the time he pulls into the garage behind his flat, it’s been nearly an hour. He’s still wired but knows he’ll be able to at least try to sleep tonight.

Sleep doesn’t come easily, especially in the past year. The normal stress of age, of muscles now too tight to move as well, of sore backs and headaches from either not having the time to eat or drinking more than his body could process are there. Now present is an ache in his shoulder and scar tissue that he has to ensure doesn’t calcify. The irritation of teeth grinding and the subsequent aching jaw. The psychological remnants of his three months of hell in Belfast rearing their head in strange ways. Frequent nightmares of dank stone corridors, of punches to the head, of the absolute lack of sunlight. Then dreams of the voice in the dark that would yell (never at him) and speak softly against his ear before putting a bitter tablet under his tongue. Of the mouth against his, soft and wet. For months, he thought it was a fever dream or hallucination. He has no idea why he’d have imagined that man, Alec, 006 was comforting him like that, touching him and tasting him and grounding him. He didn’t think of it for years, decades really. Only when he reviewed his own file and didn’t see it did it flood back to him. _The Sin of Omission._ He knows he didn’t imagine the soft hand on his cheek, the loosening of the zip ties on his wrists. He unconsciously touches the slight pink mark still visible if you know to look for it.

He doesn’t bother turning on the lights in the hall or the living room. He walks straight to his bedroom, then to the bath and runs it. It’s one of his only indulgences. When he moved into this place, he had the entire room redone and a massive tub installed that was big enough for two but never held two people at once despite his best efforts. He pours a glass of scotch and undresses, throwing the suit into a cloth bag for the cleaner and the braces onto a hanger in his closet that is now filled with exceptionally beautiful suits. His casual wear now consists of two pair of jeans, a pair of linen trousers, a handful of old jumpers and some T-shirts from another lifetime. They all sit in drawers he barely opens. His life is his work…for now at least.

He resists the urge to look him up again, knowing that his search history is tagged. He’ll look when he’s back in the office. It’s akin to looking up an ex but somehow even more bizarre. He doesn’t know Alec Trevelyan, not really. Everything from his imprisonment is tainted by his nightmares, his dreams. He isn’t quite sure what is real, what truly happened. He knows that he owes the man his life and someday, he’ll tell him so. Just not tonight. Tonight, he will soak in the tub with a glass of scotch and silence and hopefully drift off to a night bereft of dreams, bereft of night terrors.


End file.
